He ran his eye over the letter quickly, jerked upright, unfastened the hook of his stiff collar, ran his tongue over his lips and started reading again, taking his time now, as if he was trying to make something out between the lines.
He took so long, Senka got bored. Luckily, there were photographs hanging on the walls and newspaper cuttings in frames behind glass.
The most interesting thing there was a picture from a magazine. Solntsev standing there, a bit younger than he was now, with his hands perched smartly on his hips, and a wooden coffin beside him on the floor. The man in it had a moustache and a black hole in his forehead. The caption underneath read: ‘Young district inspector puts an end to the criminal career of Loberetsky the Apache’.
Under that was an article with the enormous headline: ‘Gang of counterfeiters arrested. Three cheers for the police!’
A photograph without any caption: Solntsev shaking hands with the governor general. His Highness Simeon Alexandrovich was skinny and incredibly tall, with his chin stuck up in the air, and the superintendent was bowing, knees bent, with a smarmy great smile pasted right across his mug (that is, his face).
Another article, not so very old, it wasn’t yellow yet: ‘The youngest precinct superintendent in Moscow’, from the Moscow Municipal Police Gazette. Senka read the beginning: ‘The brilliant operation that resulted in the arrest of a band of robbers in Khamovniki, who were given away by one of the members of that criminal association, has drawn attention once again to the talent of Colonel Solntsev and secured him not only a priority promotion, but an appointment to one of the most difficult and high-profile precincts in the old capital, Khitrovka . . .’
He couldn’t read any more because the superintendent interrupted. ‘Well now. A most interesting message.’
He wasn’t looking at the letter as he said that, but at Senka, and looking at him in a nasty sort of way, as if he was going to take him apart, unscrew all his nuts and bolts and peer at what was inside.
‘Who do you belong to, Alexandrova? Who’s your pimp?’
‘I don’t belong to anyone, I work for myself,’ Senka answered after a moment’s hesitation. What if he named some pimp, even Brawn, and the superintendent took it into his head to check? Have you got a mamselle by that name, Brawn? That would be a real disaster.
‘You used to work for yourself,’ the superintendent said with an evil smile. ‘But not any more you don’t. From this day on you’re going to peach for me. I can tell just by looking at you that you’re a quick-witted girl, you’ve got sharp eyes. And good-looking too, buxom. Your voice is disgusting, that’s true, but then you won’t be singing at the Bolshoi.’
He laughed. So the rotten snake had decided to recruit Senka as a peacher! That was what they called mamselles who squealed on their own kind. If the bandits found out, there was only one pay-off for that – they’d rip the peacher’s guts out.
If a streetwalker was found with her belly ripped open, everyone knew what it was for. But just you try and find out who’d done it! Even so, there were plenty of little mamselles who peached. And not just for the fun of it, of course not. When the coppers started turning the screws, there was no way to wriggle out.
Now, it made no odds to Senka if they recruited him as a peacher, but any self-respecting mamselle had to kick up a bit.
‘I’m an honest girl,’ he said proudly. ‘Not one of those whores who squeal on their own kind to you coppers. Find yourself a squealer somewhere else.’
‘Wha-at?’ the superintendent bellowed in such a terrifying voice that Senka froze. ‘Who are you calling “coppers”, you little slut? Right, Alexandrova, for that, I’m going to fine you. Three days to pay, and do you know what happens after that?’
Senka shook his head in fright – and this time he wasn’t pretending.
But Solntsev stopped yelling and switched to gentle persuasion: ‘Let me explain. If you don’t pay your fine for insulting me in three days, I’ll lock you in a cell for the night. Do you know who I’ve got in there? Criminals who are sick. They’ve got consumption and syphilis. According to the latest “humane” decree, we have to keep them separate from other prisoners. But they’ll spend the night playing with you, my girl, and then we’ll see